On the 4th and 5th of November Mladiinfo organized the international youth conference “Young Journalists and Protection of Authors` right Online”. More than seventy participants from eight European countries (Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Montenegro) discussed about some important and not so frequently highlighted issues regarding the authors’ rights in the new media.

The project, initiated by Mladiinfo is supported by the Central European Initiative (CEI).

On the first day Antoaneta Ivanova, President of Mladiinfo opened the conference, introducing the panels and speakers and underlining the importance of the protection of the author’s rights in media. H.E. Tomislav Djurin, Ambassador of Serbia, the country currently presiding CEI, addressed the participants at the opening. “Beside the concept of the authors’ rights and the need to absolutely protect them in the field of journalism and media, one of the demands of democracy is true, well-timed and complete information, as well as the full responsibility for the published contents,” Ambassador Djurin said. Further Draganco Apostolovski from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and assistant-coordinator for CEI in Macedonia addressed the participants and expressed his gratefulness to the organizers for taking initiative in informing and reporting about this unknown though important issue.

After the opening session, the first panel discussion handling “authors` rights and the new media” was moderated by Jorgos Papadakis from SEEMO (South East Europe Media Organization). After an introduction by Andrej Dameski into the legal framework of authors` rights the public was familiarized with the idea of Creative Commons and its role in the current information age by Filip Stojanovski from Metamorphosis. The third panel speaker, Jana Dukovska, explained in more details how the law can help to protect the authors` rights. One of the conclusions was the following: Even though laws are there to protect us from copyright infringement, the author should be very vigilant for protecting his own work. He has to be very careful when signing employment agreements in order to avoid future problems.

The second panel debate focused on “the treatment of authors` rights in various media” and was moderated by Tamara Causidis from the Journalists Trade Union Macedonia. The different speakers represented different media and their approach on authors` rights and the (ab)use of the internet. Present were Ana Petruseva from Balkan Insight, Igor Nobilo from the Croatian Press Photographers Association, Zorica Filipovic from Agency Beta Serbia and Zoran Ricliev from Media Print Macedonia. A lot of examples were given where the authors` either moral or material rights were not respected and regarding photos Igor Nobilo recommended the author to protect his work online with watermarking, reducing the size of the image, creating a slideshow in Flash or adding VCI index – a new way to trace your product. Also Damjan Arsovski from www.it.com.mk shared his personal experience with fighting for one`s rights and pointed out that often cases of copyright infringement should tried to be settled amicably, mostly because it’s cheaper and faster. On the other hand there was the opinion that one should fight for his rights regardless of how big or powerful enemy he is facing. In this way you will discourage further infringement and will serve as an example for others.

In the afternoon of the first day, Nikos Megrelis, Journalist and Filmmaker from Greece presented his documentary movie “Shooting vs Shooting – Dying for the truth” after which screening a lively discussion followed.

The second day focused more on civic journalism and the two panel debates of the day were moderated by Nihad Penava, freelance journalist. Both Jakub Gornicki from Sourcefabric and Mark Fonseca Rendeiro from www.citizenreporter.org shared a view on what is citizen journalism: Being citizen journalist has its own pros and cons, but it depends on what you as a journalist value more. The advantage is that he has the freedom to use any writing style he wants and to write on any topic he wants. He is not facing any deadlines and can specialize in a topic which he is really passionate about. The negative side is that he doesn’t have steady income and he is protected less than the traditional journalist. The best protection of a citizen journalist/blogger is his reputation and audience. During the second session two online media were presented: www.europa.dnevnik.bg by Kristina Hristova and www.cafebabel.eu by Sebastien Vannier.

The conference ended with a short resume and conclusive session. The conclusions can be found below, a more detailed report with the outcomes will be distributed and published soon. Though we can already state that as the conference evolved it was evident that the protection of authors` rights is a never-ending issue because as one question was answered another one opened up. The different experiences from the experts in this field show that there is not only one truth on how and whether should one apply copyright on his work. But they all agreed on one thing – every journalist, whether traditional or citizen, should be well-acquainted with his rights and make sure they are well-respected.

Agenda RIGHTS 2011

Conclusions conference authors rights 2011

Photos copyrighted by Phil Lampron